GHS baseball comes up one run short in 15-14 loss to Live Oak on
windy day
MORGAN HILL – Leave it to arch-rivals Live Oak and Gilroy to hook up in a wild affair like Monday’s regular-season finale in Morgan Hill.
Playing for second place in league on a wind-blown diamond, the Acorn baseball team outlasted the Mustangs 15-14 in Tri-County Athletic League action at Sarich Field.
It was a game that started out as a tightly played, low-scoring contest before opening up into a circus-like, high-scoring free-for-all featuring everything from wind-blown popups turning into RBI base hits to a 410-foot, record-setting home run blast.
“That was a wacky high school baseball game with the wind blowing and two arch-rivals going at it,” Live Oak head coach Mark Cummins said. “You couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“This year is the wildest year,” said Gilroy skipper Clint Wheeler, whose squad has been involved in several crazy finishes this season.
Losing for the third time in its final four games, Gilroy dropped into third place in T-CAL with a 9-6 league record and 16-9-1 overall mark. Ten days ago, the Mustangs were still in the title hunt – one game back of Palma – but losses to Hollister, Palma (which erased a five-run deficit in the seventh inning), and now Live Oak has them waiting on an at-large playoff bid.
“This hurt,” Wheeler said. “Definitely cost us, for sure, a home-field game. Hopefully, we don’t have to play one of the top four teams in the section in the first round.”
Capping a four-game winning streak to close its regular-season schedule, Live Oak (10-5 in T-CAL, 14-11 overall) claimed second place in the final league standings and the T-CAL’s second automatic berth in the Central Coast Section Division I Playoffs, which begin next week.
T-CAL champion Palma (12-3, 20-8), which edged Hollister 7-6 in Monday’s finale, earned the league’s other automatic bid, while Hollister-San Benito (8-7, 16-13) – as well as Gilroy – are also expected to earn at-large berths.
But Monday’s game may well have transcended mere CCS playoff berths, league standings and final records.
This was a game for pride and it turned out to be a contest for the ages.
Breaking open a 3-2 score with a nine-run fifth inning to take a seemingly insurmountable 11-3 lead, Live Oak watched as Gilroy rallied to within a run on a pair of scoring outbursts in the last two innings.
“I’ve got to give (Gilroy) credit – they did the same thing to us down there (in Gilroy), coming back from a deficit,” Cummins said. “They never give up and just keep battling.”
“I wanted to 10-run them but that didn’t happen,” senior first baseman Steve Conner said. “They just kept on hitting the ball. We were throwing strikes but they kept hitting them.”
Trailing 15-9 going into the top of the seventh, the Mustangs scored five runs and had the potential tying run on base before Acorn reliever Eric Abbott got Gilroy sophomore catcher Chris Hernandez to ground out to third to end the three-plus hour affair.
“It was one of those games where it looked like the team that was up last might win it,” Cummins said. “It was kind of like I wasn’t worried if they scored more in that last inning because I figured we’d score a few more ourselves.”
It didn’t start out that way, though, as starting pitchers Kyle Mosbrucker for Live Oak and Carlos Garcia for Gilroy were mostly in command early in the game.
But in its big fifth inning – the inning that started the basepath merry-go-round, Live Oak batted around and scored all nine of its runs in the inning before Gilroy could get an out.
The big hits in the innings included an RBI double by Acorn shortstop Dave Newton to claim the lead, a two-run double by Conner to knock out Garcia, an RBI single by Jared Kwock, a two-run single by Doug Porras (his second hit of the inning) and an RBI single by Bryce Wilson (his second hit of the inning) that capped the scoring in the marathon fifth.
But Gilroy answered right back with six runs in the top of the sixth inning to get back in the game, knocking out Mosbrucker in the process.
The big hits in the inning were RBI singles by outfielders Ron Colmon and Josh Sterling (2-for-5, 2 RBIs), an RBI double by junior Marty Sustaita (3-for-5, 2 RBIs), and the big blast of the inning – Ben Hemeon’s 410-foot, three-run homer to straightaway centerfield.
The dinger was Hemeon’s school-record eighth of the season.
The senior first baseman also had two doubles and a total of six RBIs, almost singlehandedly keeping the Mustangs in the game.
With its commanding lead cut to 11-9, Live Oak reasserted itself in the bottom of the sixth. Gilroy sent junior Peter Mickartz on the hill to start the inning, but the right-hander could not quiet the Acorn lumber.
RBI singles by Nick Larice and Daniel Salinas preceded a wild pitch and an error that scored two more runs to put the Acorns up 15-9.
In the top of the seventh, Gilroy rallied again on three walks to load the bases, an RBI fielder’s choice by Sterling, an RBI double by Sustaita and a two-run double to deep center by Hemeon that looked like it might go out but bounced over the 400-foot sign for a ground-rule double.
An error brought Hemeon home and pulled Gilroy within 15-14 before the final out was recorded.
